Chapel of Disease – …And as We Have Seen the Storm, We Have Embraced the Eye (Review)

Chapel of Disease are a German death metal band and this is their third album.

2015’s The Mysterious Ways of Repetitive Art stood out for its dark individuality and bleak delivery. Here was a band that took the old-school death metal template and added an atmospheric, sometimes doom-laden twist to it. It was a very effective record.

So, it’s now three years later and the band have developed themselves even further, choosing their path carefully and wisely. They have retained their death metal core, but are increasingly using other elements to round out their atmospheric and emotive sound.

…And as We Have Seen the Storm, We Have Embraced the Eye is an accomplished and well-written album. Fusing infectious melody, rabid old-school aggression, rich atmosphere, and, unusually, a whole host of rock influences together into diverse and impressive music like this is not easy, but the end result makes it seem like it is. However, this is not the work of a band that do things by accident. It’s clear that a lot of concentration and graft has gone into this, and Chapel of Disease have demonstrated that they can fuse different aspects of their influences together effectively and enjoyably.

As you may have been able to guess from the above; It’s not all pure darkness here. Chapel of Disease have produced a layered and textured album that takes a variety of influences in its imposing stride. You can hear, believe it or not, hard rock elements here, in some of the leads and solos especially. Progressive rock influences get a look-in too, and it’s impressive how the band incorporate all of this into their death metal delivery.

This contrast between light and shade, bright melody and grim death metal, works better than you might imagine. …And as We Have Seen the Storm, We Have Embraced the Eye is the sound of a band truly coming into their own. This is what you get, I suppose, if you take 80s death metal and fuse it with 70s hard and progressive rock. Yes, it’s still ultimately a death metal album, but there’s so much more than that here. We even get some mournful clean vocals during the song 1000 Different Paths, for example, set to a driving rock background.

Very highly recommended indeed. Get your fix of something different with Chapel of Disease.